


A Headmaster in Sleepy Hollow

by arcapelago (arcanewinter)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Ghosts, Halloween, M/M, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:30:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanewinter/pseuds/arcapelago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sean is engrossed with the Legend of Sleepy Hollow when Charles lets slip that the historical location is just 30 miles away on the other side of Westchester county.  Sean and Alex sneak out of the mansion to investigate, and Charles and Erik go to retrieve them, surprised to discover that North Tarrytown has at least one mystery for the holiday.  (Set in the Burdens universe.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Headmaster in Sleepy Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place a few months after the end of the Burdens timeline, where paralyzed Charles occasionally uses a metal frame to ambulate by mentally controlling a portion of Erik's abilities.

Charles sat back from the kitchen table to stretch his back and let his pen rest for the moment. Writing inquiries to potential teachers amidst the current political climate was a tricky endeavor probably more suited to the shadowy seclusion of his study, but the autumn chill had come strong and early this year and the kitchen was the warmest, and cheeriest, room in the house.

And he wasn't the only one who thought so. At the other long table sat Sean and Alex, Sean reading from Irving's "The Sketch Book" and Alex gripping a comic book in his hands, though by this point he was reading Sean's book over his shoulder, the both of them looking increasingly worried with each turn of the page. Charles smiled to himself, eyes drifting to the blue twilight squared off in the kitchen window. Occasionally dry leaves from the red maple growing next to the terrace slipped past his view in the moderate wind. He could guess which story they were reading, and why they had moved to the kitchen to do it.

Charles picked up his pen again to continue. _\--inclined to believe you've already much in common with the gifted students we attract._ He knew this letter by heart, though each was a little different, always heartfelt. Some, in the end, he decided not to send.

"So he just moved away, just like that? No way," Alex said, straightening from the book Sean had closed. His voice was hushed out of respect for Charles and his writing, but easily overheard. "Why would he leave his stuff? The horseman got him."

Sean was looking a little pale--though of course, he always did--and seemed to shiver as a gust of wind outside rustled the leaves outside and sent more clicking past the window and over the terrace pavers. "Could have been Brom, though."

"Bullshit," muttered Alex.

Charles chuckled quietly.

"Sorry, Professor," said Sean, noticing Charles' distraction.

"It's quite all right." Charles set down his pen for good this time and straightened his papers. "I think I'm about finished. What did you think of the story?"

Sean shrugged with some exaggeration. "It wasn't that scary."

"I dare you to go take a walk in the woods right now," challenged Alex, arms folded as he sat back.

Sean hit his shoulder with the book, and Charles chuckled, setting his papers and pen on his lap as he wheeled himself back from the table. "Sleepy Hollow is all the way on the other side of Westchester, Sean, I doubt--"

"It's what?" said Alex and Sean, both, with the same arrested look on their faces.

Charles stopped his wheeling. "The glen in the story, it's almost thirty miles away." Their wide-eyed expressions persisted, and Charles shook his head. "Besides, there is no horseman, obviously--"

"It's a real place? Are you kidding?" Alex was almost on his feet.

"We should go!"

"I suppose in the spring term, when we cover early American literature," mused Charles, considering Sean's strangely gleeful suggestion.

"No, for Halloween! We'd see him for sure. And we're on break starting tomorrow."

Charles laughed, returning his hands to the wheels of his chair again to turn for the door. "If we go, it'll take some planning. And I'm afraid it won't be to investigate Dutch-colonial ghost stories."

* * * * *

Charles had turned in early that night, but he was still in bed when Erik returned from his morning run. The room was a cold blue as Charles pushed himself over to face him, and Erik's hand was still chilled from the frosty morning air when Charles took it in his. "You're not supposed to be in here," he teased, groggily, trying to warm his hand under the bedding. "You'll be seen."

"Everyone is still asleep," answered Erik, smirking, though the effect was softened by the pillow he rested on.

"Mm, because we're sane people," said Charles, closing his eyes again as Erik's fingers finally began to warm against his chest.

"I did think you'd want to know that one of the cars is gone, though."

Charles' eyes snapped open again. "Gone?" Charles slipped his hand from Erik's to push himself up. He hardly needed to, but a preliminary mental sweep of the house indicated two absences. "Alex and Sean."

"I suppose they had somewhere to be?"

Charles sighed. "I've a notion, but I'll need to check." He pushed the bedding down begrudgingly and transferred himself to his chair.

"Cerebro?" Erik had sat up, legs swung over the edge of the bed. "And in your pajamas, Professor Xavier?"

Charles snorted, unlocking the wheels. "Everyone's still asleep, remember?" He stopped at the door. "Would you mind?"

Erik smiled subtly from the bed. "You do it."

Shaking his head bemusedly, Charles gave in and lifted his hand to work the iron knob with Erik's power. He beckoned the door to swing open. "Since you asked so nicely."

* * * * *

Though the range of Charles' mental faculties was considerable, Cerebro enabled him to work more swiftly, and with less effort. The installation at the mansion wasn't yet complete, but it would suffice, especially as Charles had a good idea where they might have gone.

Hank was still asleep, but Erik knew the machine as well as he did. With a few flipped switches and a quick intake of breath on Charles' part, Sean and Alex were easily located, driving down the interstate. "They would have been there by now," murmured Charles, half of himself in the room with Erik and the rest moving quite past the speed limit toward North Tarrytown, New York. "But they got a bit lost before the sun was up."

"Where are they headed?"

Charles took the wired circlet gently and lifted it from his head, setting it down on its stand. "A village about thirty miles west of here, along the Hudson. Have you heard of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow?"

"Remind me," said Erik, powering down Cerebro, and Charles sighed, wheeling his chair around to lead Erik out of the chamber.

"It's a short story from the 1820s, American, about a superstitious schoolmaster who confronts the fabled headless specter of a fallen Hessian soldier and is never seen again. They were reading it last night and took quite an interest in visiting the hollow where it's said to take place."

Erik huffed with what sounded like amusement. "Shall we retrieve them?"

Lips pursed, Charles shook his head, wheeling down the hall toward his room, hoping to reach it before anyone caught him in his nightclothes. "I'll give them the day to realize they've stolen a car. I'm sure once they do, they'll come back of their own accord." Outside his room, he turned to face Erik, fully expecting the expression of acute doubt Erik wore. He ignored it. "Besides, a few of the students will be going home for the break and their parents will expect a headmaster to responsibly discharge them."

"Then I'll do this while I can," said Erik. He bent down to brush his mouth over Charles', his cologne fresh and inviting so early in the morning. Charles only prodded him away when the day's first mind--outside of theirs--blinked awake.

Erik straightened up, then tipped his head with a lift of his brows as though just now greeting him for the day. "Good morning, Charles." But he was smiling as he turned and left Charles to his morning routine, and so was Charles.

"Morning, scoundrel."

* * * * *

The sun had set some time ago. Dinner, already pushed later at Charles' request, was already cleared. He sat by the large window in the television room, watching the drive outside where a few outdoor lights kept it bright enough to monitor. It hadn't seen any use, aside from the parents who came to retrieve their children hours before, nor had there been any remorseful phone calls. Feeling Erik enter the room behind him, Charles turned his chair to face him with a sigh. "You predicted right. They're officially delinquent."

Erik smirked, but the gloat was politely subdued. "I can ask Azazel to fetch them back. He can do the car as well."

Charles considered it. He didn't like the idea of their staying in a strange place overnight, especially gallivanting about an unfamiliar forest one of them was likely to set ablaze if startled. But Charles had another idea.

"Let's you and I go." Though he suddenly yearned for this excuse to be alone with Erik, even for a brief moment, he tried not to show the eagerness too plainly. "We'll take the other car."

Erik lifted a brow, but the line of his mouth was promising. "Are you sure, after your early morning? And who watches your wards?"

"We have other teachers."

Erik assessed him curiously for a moment, but coolly agreed, and Charles didn't hide his pleasure. "Wonderful."

* * * * *

Hank and Erik had begun fitting the car with hand controls for Charles' use several weeks back, but the installation wasn't quite finished, so Erik was behind the wheel as they pulled out of the drive.

Charles only gave a passing glance at the mansion's exterior as it slipped out of view, adjusting the angle of his seat so that the metal plate around his abdomen didn't gouge his ribs so deeply. Given the potential for tramping over dirt and underbrush this evening, the frame was a wiser choice than the chair. Still, it was in the trunk, just in case. Charles always felt better with it nearby.

Hardly a mile down the road, Charles glanced at the speedometer, then settled his attention on the road ahead again. "Feel free to match the speed limit. I'm not going to ask you to turn around."

Erik caught his eye briefly. "Are you sure about that?"

A smile softened Charles' mouth as he studied Erik's profile. "You trust them."

"That's not the point."

"It's a good portion of the point." The truth was, he wouldn't have entrusted Azazel or Emma with a single student if he couldn't entrust them with the entire school. All of his chosen teachers would be judged thus. "We can't be there all the time. Believe me, I've thought about this."

Erik's fingers stretched out from the wheel in a gesture of concession. Charles could feel the vehicle's acceleration as Erik sped up to his usual disregard for traffic laws, which Charles supposed was only natural for someone who was in complete control of every contender on the field.

Sitting back in his seat again, Charles sighed quietly. "I don't know what's got into them. I thought we'd taught them better critical thinking skills than this. Ghosts and vengeful spirits! I'd grown out of that by the time I was fifteen."

Erik lifted a brow as he glanced in his direction. "That's about ten years later than I expected from you."

"Yes, well, I've Raven to blame for that." Sinking a little toward the window, Charles watched the passing silhouettes of the trees, black against a dark blue sky. "Wolf-men in the pantry, wraiths in the wardrobe, hollow-eyed corpses chasing me down the fourth-floor corridor. She used to play the worst tricks on me."

Traumatizing as it was for Charles, he smiled when Erik actually laughed aloud before reining himself in with a more characteristic smirk. "You sound like you're still sore about it."

"Never tell her what you're afraid of, that's my advice to you." Charles chuckled quietly into his hand, watching the trees claw past the side of the road for a moment, shifting between the comfort of those old memories and the pain of nostalgia. "But I suppose she's grown out of it by now," he relented, softly. She was different in a lot of ways.

Erik, perhaps out of respect, was quiet. Suddenly Charles felt foolish for it.

"I asked if she wanted to come with us," he said, changing the subject, or perhaps just pivoting it slightly. "But I suppose it was an opportunity to stay behind with Hank."

For a moment Erik's quiet remained. They'd been traveling the narrow interstate a few miles by now. North Tarrytown wouldn't be far off.

"With Azazel," said Erik.

Charles' brow lifted with muted surprise. Should he have known that? He should have known that. "Oh."

Erik smoothly drew the conversation along--graciously, Charles thought. "Maybe he shares that flare for frightening the gullible. In honor of the season he's been feeding half your students stories of the Xavier family _domovye_ the past few nights."

" _Domovye_?"

"House ghosts."

Charles groaned. "It's no wonder they let this get to their heads."

Erik didn't share his dismay. "He's a good storyteller."

"Then I hope he's prepared to teach a class on Eastern European folklore to make it up to me. There--" said Charles, pointing to the sign up ahead as the headlights illuminated the half of it not covered in mud sprayed from the puddle beside it. "Turn off here."

On account of the twisting road, degrading rapidly to dirt and barely-legible signage, they were quiet save for the occasional agreement on which forks to take. Despite the dark, Charles was aware that the route was mostly downhill, and the wind picked up, channeled more narrowly through gullies and between the hills rolling up on either side of them. It whistled through the trees crowding close to the road, and Charles began pressing his mind out in waves to locate his two students.

The way grew narrower still, old roads now, the sort for carts and pony traps. Charles couldn't quite make it out at the time but they'd passed a sign a little ways back that must have been for the old Dutch churchyard he could just make out in a clearing through the trees.

"We'll have to walk from here," said Charles, and Erik slowed down to nestle the car into the overgrown shoulder of the road. Climbing out of the passenger side into such terrain took a great deal of care, but the metal frame Hank had built for him, a year ago now, was dexterous enough for Charles to manage it. Controlled by Charles, through Erik, it allowed him a level of mobility that proved useful from time to time.

Following the car and finally letting go of it, he caught up to Erik and matched his pace. "They're on the other side of the churchyard, thereabout." He would have said more, but the wind was chilled enough to steal his breath when it kicked up again, creaking boughs that spanned overhead as they left the road and rustling the more stubborn leaves that still hung on. Charles drew his jacket close around him, and felt Erik's hand at the middle of his back. _There's the Dutch church in the story_ , Charles told him, preferring not to shout over the wind.

Worn smooth by weather such as this, the small building's cobblestone walls gleamed with the moonlight and made silhouettes of the crooked tombstones, rows and rows, between them and the church.

Charles stopped. Erik stopped with him. "They're headed this way. Something's wrong."

There was no time for Erik to ask. Within another breath of wind their figures were visible, bursting into the clearing at top speed and tearing through the yard between the graves. Sean tripped in the brush, and Alex leapt back to pull him up, before Charles realized they didn't see them.

Erik's attention was on the trees they'd emerged from. "What are they running from?"

"I detect nothing," said Charles, quickly as he began picking his way through the graves toward them, calling their names. "We're here! Come this way!" _Come to us, we're here._

Their trajectory pivoted, but they hardly slowed down, and Charles wasn't sure he could catch Alex without the both of them pitching into the dirt, but he managed it. With less difficulty Erik had brought Sean to a halt, hands gripping his shoulders as Sean looked wildly over his shoulder at the trees they'd come out of.

"There's nothing," Erik was saying. "And if there were, you could handle it. Look at me. There's nothing."

While Sean seemed unconvinced, Alex had regained some semblance of composure, straightening up and stepping back from Charles. His eyes swept the trunks of the trees but with less of the fear that had driven his steps just a moment ago.

Charles looked between them carefully, still listening for any sign of danger but sensing nothing, mentally or audibly. "What was it? What did you see?"

Alex set his shoulders and finally turned his back to the trees. He looked Charles in the eye when he said, "Nothing."

Sean's nerves steeled as he looked to Alex. "We saw the horseman. Both of us did."

Charles pursed his lips, looking from them to Erik and back again. In truth he was feeling less than patient, but the sooner they retreated from such a suggestive atmosphere as the famous churchyard the sooner they'd realize the more likely explanation that they'd imagined it. The time for lectures wasn't tonight. "Let's get back to the car," he said.

Before he could take a step, Sean stopped him. "Look at my thoughts. You'll see."

Charles frowned. He would have protested if the look in Sean's eyes suggested he could be dissuaded. As unobtrusively as possible, Charles let his mind seek the last few minutes of Sean's memory.

The intense fear struck him like an icy wind, rooting him in place while through Sean's eyes he saw the dark shape rearing up between the trees and emerging onto the road. The menace was almost palpable, but the rest of the memory was splintered as the more primitive regions of Sean's mind turned him 'round to run for his life.

Charles lowered his hand with a sigh, glancing at Erik, who wore a hard expression but was quiet. "There's something there, but I don't see what your eyes saw, Sean, I see what your mind made of it."

Sean looked frustrated. Whatever Alex was feeling, he kept it well hidden, looking merely annoyed.

"Let's get in the car," said Erik, finally. "We should stay in town tonight. We can come back out in the morning, and see if your story still feels likely."

The tone Erik used bordered on ridicule, but Charles was satisfied with the suggestion. In the daylight, the improbability of equestrian ghouls would become apparent.

Alex and Sean relented, though Sean might have just been relieved to get away from the place and into someplace warm. Charles looked forward to the same.

* * * * *

Outside the town's only inn, Charles opened the trunk of the car and pulled out the wheelchair folded there. Erik, who had come back out with him, didn't ask to carry it, but Charles did feel it was lighter than he knew it to be. He smiled knowingly, and looked forward to getting into bed.

"What a shame there were only two rooms left," Erik said lightly.

Charles laughed quietly, closing the trunk with the requisite bang. It echoed down the empty street, filling the space people left for the night. "I'm just glad it was the receptionist who suggested we double up."

On the second floor Sean was at the window of the room he would share with Alex--a large, old window with a heavy, sweeping curtain--looking out as though expecting to see something.

Charles sighed.

"It bothers you," said Erik.

"'A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence,'" Charles replied. He shook his head, and started back toward the inn. They hadn't brought overnight supplies, but their clothes would do for the morning, and the front desk had a small supply of toothbrushes and pocket combs for the occasional forgetful guest.

"That's unusually prudent of you," said Erik, following, and Charles shook his head again.

"I am a man of science, Erik. Hope and belief are quite different things."

* * * * *

In the morning, Charles could feel the dampness in the weather before he even opened his eyes. An old building like this, and like the Xavier manor for that matter, did a poor job of keeping outside and inside climates at all different.

The furnace of Erik's body was standing at the window, too far away to be of any use, and Charles' pajamas were sadly 30 miles away. Against all desire, Charles shivered awake, and sat up, looking forward to a hot shower and a hot breakfast and hot coffee.

Hardly anything was visible through the window where Erik stood. Frost made circles of the square panes and beyond that the dawn was a thick mist.

Erik was already dressed in yesterday's clothes, eyes bright and cautious.

"You're not thinking of going out, are you?" Charles knew Erik never could sleep in, and he usually ran himself into an attractive state of perspiration around this time each day.

"I've already been out," said Erik, a smirk gracing his lips, but slighter than usual. When he turned Charles could see his arm resting at his side, though his fingers were splayed out gently as though toward the comfort of a pet dog. Below his fingertips a few pieces of loose change were making elaborate patterns in the air. "I walked. I didn't have the clothes for a run."

"It seems like a charming place, if the street lamps are any indication." They didn't see much of it last night, but Charles always liked the stately brick and colonial architecture of these old American towns. "Perhaps we could stay the day and explore, so long as we're here."

Erik was silent as Charles transferred himself to his chair next to the bed, cringing with the cold vinyl against his back and sitting forward to escape it. He assumed Erik didn't enjoy the idea of a day trip sightseeing, but the mood of the room sharpened as Erik seemed on the verge of saying something.

Charles watched as Erik drew the coins into his palm and closed his hand around them.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Erik frowned, lifting his hand and folding his arm in toward his chest.

Charles rolled his chair forward and turned it so that he faced Erik's side. He leaned back to look up at him, momentarily forgetting the chill of the vinyl behind him. "Did you see something?"

Erik sighed, his eyes falling half-shut in an expression of dismissal. "Something. Heard something. The sun wasn't up and the fog was still thick. I thought it was a farmer's horse."

Charles pursed his lips. Immediately he felt ashamed for discrediting Sean's claim last night.

"Was there--someone on it?"

Erik turned his eyes on him, hard, as though expecting Charles to be watching him with amusement. But Charles knew his face expressed only seriousness. He didn't expect Erik to confess anything improbable that hadn't already gone through rigorous internal examination.

"There might have been. It was in the woods. I had hardly left town."

"Well," conceded Charles, "we'll investigate. Horses are very heavy, they leave a lot of evidence." He was ready to roll himself back in preparation for a shower, hoping to lessen the tension, when Erik turned to him.

"I'm not concerned about a horse, Charles."

In a sudden release of anger Erik swung his arm out toward the room and threw the coins. They flew in stiff trajectories from his hand until all at once they halted as though embedded in an invisible wall.

"When I felt the ground shaking as it came at me I reached out for the old ax head I'd felt hidden in the dirt. It didn't come. I reached out for the sewer grill and it didn't come. I called out for the hundred twisted corroded scraps of metal that humans drop and bury wherever they go and I had nothing, no force."

Charles watched him with his lips parted, feeling, perhaps intuitively or directly from the unbreaking thread that connected them, how terrifying such a thing was for Erik, to be stripped of his defense, stripped of--in many ways--his identity. Stripped of his self-appointed worth.

"What did you do?"

The coins in the air slid back toward Erik's hand, more slowly now as he sighed. He dropped them unceremoniously back into his pocket. "It stopped at the edge of the woods, maybe twenty feet away from me. I never saw it clearly, but it evaporated right there. It wasn't until I'd begun moving back into town that I could even sense my own belt buckle."

Absently, Charles rubbed at the unfeeling length of his thigh. "We can talk to Sean more about what he saw, and Alex, too. He's trying to deny it but they experienced it together. But I think we should head back home like we planned and leave this alone."

"You can go. They can drive you."

"Erik--"

"I need to know what this is."

Erik looked fierce as he stepped away from the window, glancing at Charles before he made his way toward the door. "Let me know when you're ready."

Charles closed his mouth against arguing, opening it again only give him his agreement.

* * * * *

Charles wasn't going to leave Erik here alone, and as it turned out, Alex and Sean refused to leave them either.

Warm from the shower and outfitted again with the frame, Charles tried to enjoy the old-fashioned English breakfast laid out for them in the inn's tiny dining room. A collection of other guests ate at the tables crowded close around, but Charles kept them from overhearing.

"What did you do when you saw it?" Charles asked them. "Were you able to defend yourselves?"

Sean looked at Alex with a mouth full of baked beans, and Alex finally sighed, acknowledging for the first time that something had happened. "We couldn't even see what it was. It was too dark. But we heard--" he stopped to glance around him, as though affirming that the other guests weren't listening before he went on. "We heard hooves, and the whinnying--whatever horses do--and saw that shape."

"With fire!" added Sean, setting down his flatware to illustrate his words as he continued. "In the horse's eyes, and at the end of the horseman's blade, and on his neck where his head should have been." He canted his head at a morbid angle to puppet the flames there with his hand.

Alex paused, but shrugged, saying, "I didn't see that. But we turned tail and ran for the nearest clearing. That's when we ran into you."

"You didn't try to--" Charles paused, searching--"fend it off?" Both Alex and Sean had strong defensive powers. Without saying as much, Charles wanted to know if they'd attempted to use them, and if they had worked.

Looking somewhat embarrassed, they both shook their heads. They avoided Erik's gaze, and Charles guessed it was to avoid his ridicule for not fulfilling the potential of their mutant capabilities, though this was perhaps the one time they wouldn't receive it.

* * * * *

The warmth of his shower and the food wore off quickly, and Charles was feeling rather surly about spending another day away from home. But if something were going on in North Tarrytown, he wanted to know what. And if there weren't anything going on, he wanted to say so.

After breakfast, Charles excused himself and borrowed the telephone at the front desk for the second time. Emma answered, after five or six rings.

"Emma, darling, it's Charles. It looks like we'll be spending another night here."

She sounded neither surprised nor disappointed. "Do you need anything from here? Azazel's been looking for a reason to join you."

From what Erik had told him, Charles could guess why. "There are a few shops here if we can't do without. Will you be all right with the students a while longer?"

"What students?" She paused. "Are there students here?"

Charles sighed, but finally chuckled. "You have my gratitude." Finding the inn's card nearby, he read it to her in case there were any messages to convey. "Of course, if there is an emergency, Azazel will get his wish."

They were about to hang up when Charles thought of one more thing. He felt foolish for it, but he had to know. "Could I bother you to put Raven on the line?"

A few moments later his sister's voice greeted him. She sounded not particularly pleased, but not altogether annoyed, which he took as a triumph. "Things all right there?" he began.

"You haven't even been gone 24 hours."

He smiled lightly. "A lot can go wrong in a day."

There was a bit of silence on the line before she said, "We're fine here."

"Good," he said. He was aware of the tension his stalling created. Finally, he sighed. "You weren't . . . here, last night, were you? Or this morning?"

She laughed. "Charles, I don't even know where you are. I've been home."

Charles closed his eyes, leaning on the tall desk and smiling in submission. "I just thought perhaps someone was playing a trick on us." Azazel could have had her there and back again in an instant, but he didn't elaborate on this part of the theory. "Ghouls and goblins, that sort of thing."

She laughed again, but it was a much milder, warmer sound this time. He thought he could hear the light smile on her lips. "I forgot about that. But it wasn't me. Anything you want to tell me?"

"Not yet," he lied. He didn't know what was going on just yet. There was no point in sharing it.

"Be careful. Erik too."

"Of course."

When they hung up, Charles thanked the receptionist and wandered a few steps to sit down in one of the tall chairs, newly upholstered in the old style, against the wall. His mind had leapt at the possibility that the presence in the woods was explicable--Raven come on Azazel's wings to fool them--and he was having a hard time giving it up again. It was true Raven could be lying, but he had to take her at her word. Besides, it wouldn't explain Erik's experience.

Charles looked up as Erik emerged from the dining room. As always, there was a limit to how far apart they could be while Charles used a small sliver of Erik's power to control the frame that operated the lower half of him, but at least it didn't require very close quarters. Erik's freedom was too important to him.

"Everything's as it should be?"

Charles stood up to meet him as he approached. "At home, at least. They know not to expect us tonight."

"Havok agreed he would drive you."

"Nonsense, I'm not leaving you."

Erik gave him a hard look of impatience, lowering his voice to keep their conversation between them. "If I lose my power again I will be no help to you."

Pointedly, Erik's gaze fell, then lifted again.

Mulling over the implication, Charles sighed lightly. "We'll take the car as close as we can, and I'll stay in it, safely away from the excitement. Fair enough?"

Erik didn't seem happy about it, but he rarely seemed that way about anything.

* * * * *

It was late afternoon when they set out again, the four of them in the car, Erik driving, Charles in the passenger's seat. Where the road bent close into the woods, just in the middle of the mile between the town and the Dutch church and its graveyard, Erik pulled over, and Charles peered out of his window. The bend afforded a decent view, though some 200 yards from the road the density of the trees really picked up and shut out the space beyond it. He could just make out the graves in the clearing far to his left. To his right the town left no trace.

When Erik and the boys opened their doors, Charles did too, earning him Erik's questioning stare over the hood of the car.

"I won't go far," he said. "Besides, it's not even four in the afternoon. If there's a ghoul wreaking havoc--not you, Alex--in these woods I think we'll be safe a little longer."

Erik shut his door and sighed. "We have no idea what it is, so we don't know when it could show."

"How many headless horsemen can there be?" asked Sean. "I know what I saw."

"For a split second until you bolted into a graveyard," mumbled Alex.

"But you saw it, too!"

Alex sighed at him over the car. "I'm just saying, it's something, but it could be anything."

Again Sean looked somewhat hurt, and Charles stepped beside him and squeezed his arm encouragingly. "We'll see what happens." Lifting his voice so that Erik and Alex heard, he added, "Fear can rob us of our faculties. Have a back-up plan in case your defensive skills fail you."

Erik closed the trunk with a large blade in his hand, glinting in the low-slanted sunlight. "And that back-up plan is this car. Get to it or we're leaving you."

Charles sighed inwardly. Of course they wouldn't leave them.

Then again, Erik was driving.

"Let's take a look while we can," suggested Charles, and together they moved from the road into the fallen leaves carpeting the woods. Most of the tree branches were bare by now, but Charles noted that it only seemed to make the woods darker, not brighter. But noticing more than that was difficult for him, having to concentrate on not tripping over gnarled roots he couldn't see or feel.

Alex led them to where they'd been when they had seen it. The leaves there were kicked up and flattened from their shoes. Surveying the woods from there, Alex pointed some twenty yards away. "There, by those trees. That's where I saw it."

He made to approach the place with Sean but Erik waved them both back. "You'll compromise it. I'll go."

Charles also stayed, watching Erik move carefully, thoughtfully, toward the spot. Charles wondered when Erik would have required tracking skills, then wished he hadn't.

"There!" called Alex, when Erik had reached the place, and Erik spent a moment examining it without moving his footing very much. There were some bare patches where the wind had blown the leaves away to skirt around another tree instead. Perhaps there would be impressions in the mud?

"There's nothing here," Erik called back. He widened his search, crouching at times to examine the ground more closely, but he soon returned to where they stood.

"Squirrels at most. Certainly no horses."

"It's a ghost horse anyway," mumbled Sean. Luckily Erik left it alone.

"It's getting dark," said Alex, and Charles looked up to agree with surprise that it was. The slight downward slope of the area seemed to swallow the sun more quickly than was natural.

"I'll be in the car," said Charles. "I'm a bit too clumsy to run at the best of times, let alone the worst. I'd advise you all not to wander far."

Alex and Sean were hardly paying attention to him, though Erik's eyes were nowhere else for a long moment.

Finally Charles looked away, making his way carefully back toward the car, reading the bumps and slopes of the ground as well as he could.

He was only a few feet from the door of the car when he heard Sean shout.

"By the church!"

Charles turned as quickly as he could, leaning into the car to keep his balance. He peered through the dimly lit trunks, pale blue and indistinct in the swift twilight. He saw the lines of the church and the dotted tombstones in its yard, but nothing around it but a growing darkness, as though the remaining sunlight were being drained away through some tear in the forest just there.

"Come to the car!" Charles shouted. "Erik, do you see it?"

Erik didn't answer him, but he was gripping the handle of his blade so tightly his knuckles were white.

"Erik!"

Charles thought he heard something, a high-pitched sort of wail that couldn't be distinguished from a sudden gust of wind in the barren trees. That groaning could only be the creaking of the wooden boughs. Still Erik stood his ground and didn't heed him. Alex and Sean were backing their way toward the car, though they wouldn't tear their eyes away from the blackening point near the church. What did they see?

Pushing himself from the car, Charles moved more from memory now than sight along the path they'd kicked up. The tension in the other three gave the air a solid feeling, adding ice to the chill that surrounded them from the start. He reached Erik through it, gripping his arm. "Erik--"

"I can't," Erik said, breathless like the scrape of leaves at his feet. "I can't feel it."

He bowed his head to look at the knife he was clutching, and Charles followed his gaze. He'd lost his power again. But--

Erik's gaze shifted to Charles' middle, where the metal frame held him up, then lifted to meet his eyes.

"Erik, let's just get to the car," Charles was saying. He had gripped Erik's wrist to draw him with him. They could observe this phenomenon from the safety of their escape route. He felt like he had to shout over the moaning of the wind and that shrill call that he still couldn't place.

Charles couldn't explain how he was still upright in the frame. But Erik's gaze implored him in a state of confusion, and he seemed frozen, rooted to the ground. But Charles knew he was capable of much beyond his mutant abilities if he would just--

"Charles," he said. His lips barely moved as that expression remained. "What are you doing?"

Charles looked down to where his hand gripped Erik's wrist. When he looked up again, Erik did too, with the same imploring expression, the same one Charles knew he wore himself.

Charles' every action became Erik's.

When Charles wrenched them apart, stumbling back two paces, Erik fell back the same two paces, and stood, rigid as Charles was rigid.

"Charles?"

"No, no," said Charles, so low he couldn't hear himself over the whirl of sounds that seemed to race around them from the churchyard. He was aware of Sean and Alex behind him, nearer the car. He was aware of the car itself, through his use of Erik. And he was aware of Erik--Charles vowed he'd never allow this again--wouldn't let it happen again--

A shuddering ring of bold red energy ripped through the empty space behind him, reeling toward the church until it struck the heavy bough it had been aimed for. The severed limb fell with a creak and a crash just in front of the dark point that as yet eluded Charles' ability to identify it.

The weight of it sent a tremor through the ground which Charles felt only in the metal plate around his middle. As it reached him, so did Erik, now suddenly urging him to the car, and Charles followed, mutely. Alex and Sean were already climbing in, frantically pulling their doors shut and slamming the locks down.

Joining them, Charles took his place at the passenger side and Erik started the engine without issue, the key left in the ignition. They barely had room to turn the car, but Erik managed it, and they sped through the dust and gravel of the unpaved road toward town.

Charles was only distantly aware of the tense, clipped words from Sean and Alex, certain now that they'd seen what they'd seen, exclaiming when they thought it was chasing them behind the car, but Charles could see nothing, nothing . . . . Instead he was consumed by that look on Erik's face, the look on his own face, the projection he'd made of the man he was so close to destroying at all times. When Charles was in Erik's mind so consistently there was always a chance Charles would bleed over into him.

He'd still said nothing by the time they'd stopped in front of the inn. Away from the woods the light was more effective here, a true twilight of more friendly shapes and people still walking the pavement. The street lamps had not even come on yet. There was nothing to fear here.

For a long moment they merely caught their breath, letting the normality of their surroundings sink in and slow their heartbeats. Charles leaned back in his seat. Erik's hands relaxed on the wheel, then finally let it go. The blade was on the floor at his feet.

"Do you believe me now?" asked Sean, finally.

Charles sighed slowly. "I believe there was something there. But I saw no horseman, and no horse."

"What?"

"It was indistinct," said Erik. "Havok didn't corroborate your story last time either."

"No way," groaned Sean, flopping back against his seat.

"Even if we had all seen your legend, it wouldn't explain everything," sighed Erik, and Charles looked over at him with mild surprise. Erik met his eyes looking defeated.

"Havok could," Erik said. "You could. I couldn't. Why?"

"What's he mean?" asked Sean, and Charles glanced between them. If Erik had brought it up, he must have been prepared to discuss it at this point.

"Erik . . . lost the command of his mutation in its presence. But Alex, you were able to use yours, and I--" Charles pursed his lips tightly. "Mine was not compromised."

Sean sat forward, jostling Charles' seat lightly as he did. "But I thought Erik was what kept you up. If he couldn't use his powers, why could you use them?"

Charles sighed, resting his hands in his lap but shifting as his posture resembled Erik's too closely. "I don't know." He lifted his hand to rub his eyes, trying to focus on what had been in the woods with them. But the image in his memory refused to come into focus. Much clearer was the vision of Erik, his body a puppet of Charles' mind. But it shouldn't have been possible--there were safeguards Charles insisted on to protect Erik.

"What if we were hallucinating?" said Alex.

Charles straightened, pushing against the door to turn and look at him over the seat. "All of us?" He frowned in thought.

"Yeah," said Alex, shifting in his seat as he looked around the car. "We saw what we expected to see."

Charles let his gaze drift to Erik's shoulder as he considered it, his frown fading to a softer line. "What we were afraid to see." _Thank God, thank God._

Alex sat forward now, more confident. "Banshee had been reading that story too much, so he saw the clearest picture of it. I didn't really know what we were looking for, so I didn't have the details. And Magneto . . ."

Charles glanced at Erik, who was listening with a cold expression, though out of respect Alex failed to elaborate. The worth Erik placed in his mutation was well known.

"And Professor, you didn't really see anything because you're too level-headed."

Charles closed his eyes with a light shake of his head. "I'm afraid not, Alex." For the moment, he left no time for explanation. "But if your theory is right, and I believe it explains our experience, we are dealing with something more concrete than a figment. Something capable of manipulating our thoughts."

Sean quirked a brow as he glanced between Charles and Alex. "A mutant?"

"It must be." Charles sat back in his seat again, then reached for the door to open it and step out. Sean opened his door too, but didn't leave the car.

"Shouldn't we go back and talk to it? It might need our help."

"My thoughts exactly," answered Charles. "But we're going to need Emma."

Erik got out of the car, and Alex and Sean followed suit. "Why Emma?" said Alex.

Erik had the blade in his hand again, which he took to the trunk to stow once more. "Because Charles would have known there was a mutant in this town if it weren't interfering with him telepathically. Emma will put a stop to that."

Charles nodded. "We can hardly help someone we can't communicate with." He gestured toward the inn. "It's too late to ask her tonight. Let's get some sleep, and we'll talk to her in the morning."

* * * * *

When Charles woke up it was hours before dawn and pitch dark.

The dark lasted only a few seconds before Emma switched on a lamp. At the same time, before Charles could assure him she was no intruder, Erik had leapt from the bed next to him in a swift arc that left no time to be stopped--unless it was by Emma, who halted his movements just before he reached her and then stepped aside to let him absorb his momentum on his own.

"What are you doing here?" Erik growled, though Charles heard more fatigue than malice in it as he slowed and straightened up.

"We weren't going to call you until the afternoon," added Charles, pushing himself up against the headboard and still wincing in the lamp light. The smell of sulfur in the air gave away her mode of entry.

"Banshee made an executive decision and moved up the schedule," she answered.

"You couldn't have notified us a little more gently?" asked Charles, frowning lightly as Erik stood unabashedly in his boxers.

"Chop chop, gentlemen," she said, turning to flare out her cape and walking to the door. "I'll be downstairs."

* * * * *

With Azazel there was no need for the car. They found themselves in the woods again, where it was very dark, and very cold. Charles could feel the shield that Emma drew around them almost immediately, almost like cotton stopping up his ears so that his own thoughts mixed with the thump of his heartbeat in a claustrophobic muffling. 

Alex, standing with Sean, had his arms tightly folded over his chest, shivering even in his jacket. "You know this mutant probably comes out during the day too."

"Oops."

Azazel looked most animated of them all. "You're sure it's not _rusalka_? There is water nearby."

Charles looked toward Erik for explanation, but Erik simply sighed.

As though in solidarity with his response, the rest of the group grew quiet, competing with the surrounding woods for the absence of sound. There was no wind, now, though there'd been no stillness just hours ago. It was too early for birds, and no creatures rustled in the leaves blanketing the ground. Instinctively Charles tried listening for something beyond that, but Emma's shield prevented him.

Careful not to lose his balance and disturb the silence, Charles looked around them, peering into the denser trees away from the road, then slowly around to the clearing barred by the shadows of trees, with the old church and its graves. Further around, he could see the road. As his eyes adjusted, there was more light than he expected, stars and a crescent moon casting a glow unobstructed by the bare branches above them. It seemed like a normal patch of wilderness now. There was nothing frightening that did not already belong there.

It was so quiet that the scuffle of a foot sliding on a tree root pierced the empty space. If the girl had not been so pale Charles might not have seen her peering cautiously out from behind a tree trunk roughly thirty feet away, further away from the road.

Slowly, so as not to frighten her, Charles gestured in her direction. Emma, it seemed, had already spotted her. Her cloak was already off her shoulders and she hurried toward the child, draping the cloak around her slight frame and holding it closed at her chest to warm and cover her. She couldn't have been older than seven or eight. What an unfortunate mutation for anyone to develop, Charles thought, let alone a child.

Pressed to help, Charles stepped forward, but Emma held up her hand to bid him stay.

"She has a way with children," said Azazel, nudging his chin in her direction. "Better to let her talk."

Charles stayed where he was, unable to hear them and discomforted by it. But he knew Azazel was right. The girl was probably frightened, and a group of five strange men, one of them of unique appearance, wasn't likely to help matters.

"It was her doing all this? How long do you think she's been out here?" asked Alex.

"Since the night you arrived, at least," said Charles, keeping his voice low.

"It looks like a lot longer than that," said Erik.

Her cheeks looked gaunt. Her light brown hair was tangled, though as Emma spoke to her she gently worked a few of the knots free with her fingers.

In his head, Charles heard Emma's voice. Beneath it, he could just barely hear the child's small, frightened words, while Emma's voice came through clearly over it. _Her family left her. They were afraid of her. She made them see things, but she didn't mean to._

Charles frowned, his chest tightening to imagine a child abandoned by her family because of a mutation she couldn't control. He glanced at Erik, and the others, and knew from the looks of anger and empathy that they heard Emma's voice too.

_Ask her if she wants to come with us,_ Charles replied. _We can give her a home._

Emma smiled at the girl, then went on speaking, aloud, so that Charles couldn't hear again. The girl did not seem quickly moved by her words, but she slowly nodded, and attempted a smile of her own.

Charles felt immediately lighter. He was relieved at the chance to make a difference in this girl's life, and give her a place where she would not be abandoned again. It would take careful training with Emma to learn to curb her projected illusions, if they could be curbed, but Charles already knew Emma would be willing.

Emma took the girl's hand and stood, helping her to navigate the roots and other pitfalls of the forest floor while the girl kept the cloak tightly clasped at her chest. It dragged behind her in the dirt, but Emma paid it no mind.

They'd covered half the distance when the girl suddenly stopped. With a startled look on her face she pulled her small hand from Emma's and bolted back the way they'd come, dropping the cloak in her wake. Desperate not to lose her, Charles cried for her to wait, spinning his mind out to her like a rope to rescue her before he remembered he shouldn't.

It sounded like shattering to Charles, loud and agonizing like glass twisting in his ears. He heard the strangled gasp from Emma and knew he'd hurt her, too, forcing his mind through her shield. He staggered, though Erik caught him, and scrambled with all his senses to try to find the girl again, but Emma's shield had encompassed him once more. In the seconds before it did, the woods around them seemed to well up again with the living darkness from before. When the darkness lapsed, the trees were empty of the girl.

"Can you find her?" he asked, his own voice splitting his ears though he knew it was hardly more than a rasp.

_No_ , Emma answered, still sounding pained, and perhaps irritated.

Charles apologized sincerely. As he stood straight again with difficulty, he held his head with one hand, the other still gripping Erik's arm. The woods were blotted with colors from behind his eyes. "Did anyone see where she went?"

It was only now he noticed Alex had run into the woods after her, but the way he turned in a circle where he stood indicated that he too had lost sight of her.

"You effectively blinded us," said Erik, flatly. "We'll have to wait for her to emerge again."

Charles sighed, cursing the thoughtlessness of his actions. He'd caused them to lose her, caused a delay she might not be able to afford. He finally nodded, conceding that they could only wait, and he eased himself down with Erik's help to sit at the base of a tree while his head ached with his pulse. It was all he could do to stay alert and listen, with infuriating limitations, for the girl's return while the sky gradually lightened.

* * * * *

Hours later, they had searched, called, and followed footprints that went in many directions only to be lost in the leaves again. With no further sign of the girl it was decided that, despite Charles' and Emma's reluctance to leave her, they should try to rest for a few hours. By that time, Charles hoped, he'd be better able to turn his focus toward the town itself, and find the family who had abandoned her so heartlessly.

At the inn, Charles sat down with defeat on the sofa in their room and slouched until he could rest his head on its back. He wanted more than anything to lie down and sleep to recover from the mental bruising he'd given himself, but he didn't want to lose too much time. He couldn't forget their commitment to the mutant girl.

He felt, with perfectly human senses, that Erik came to stand before him a moment before he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"What did she make you see?" he asked, at length.

Charles lifted his brows with a sigh, though he didn't open his eyes. "You must already know my greatest fear of late."

The room was quiet save for Charles' breathing, noisy in his position on the couch.

"You overtaking my mind?" ventured Erik, and Charles sighed.

"In the woods you were mirroring me. I don't know what you were actually doing."

"Not that."

Erik slowly got up from the bed. Charles listened to his footsteps as he crossed the room, then felt the slump in the sofa cushions as he sat next to him. Erik's warm moved close beside him. "You should have known right then it wasn't real."

Charles smiled lightly, finally opening his eyes to look at him. "One day I will."

* * * * *

When Charles felt enough of his strength return to launch a telepathic search of the town's inhabitants, he rose from the sofa and straightened his clothes. After three days, though, there didn't seem to be much point.

"Come on," he said, tugging Erik up from where he had nearly fallen asleep beside him.

When they opened the door to the hall, Azazel was standing there propped up against the stately wallpaper with his ankles and arms crossed as though he'd been lazing there for some time, though Charles knew he'd only just appeared there when they reached the door to their room.

"Where are you going?" he asked them.

"Just down to the street to begin our search," Charles answered, wondering at the question. "You can go back home if you like, we've got both cars."

"Search for the girl?"

Charles looked to Erik and back again, now truly confounded by him. "Yes, of course. Or her family."

Azazel closed his eyes with a smug smile twisting his lips. His tail lifted with a slow curl. "That girl was dead."

Charles coughed and laughed shortly. "What?"

"Not living. Deceased. A former mutant."

"Nonsense. We all saw her. How would you know, besides?"

"I have eyes." He opened one of them, shrugging. "And the _domovoi_ here told me."

"Very amusing," Charles muttered, feeling irritated now to be held up from finding the poor child. He glanced to Erik, whose brow was similarly furrowed, and walked with him past Azazel and down the stairs.

In the sitting room by the receptionist's desk, Charles was surprised to find Sean and Alex pouring over a chronicle of some sort on the coffee table. They were hardly ever interested in the news. As he approached, he noted it was unreasonably old--perhaps a century. "What is this?"

"Azazel took it from the library. Professor, you're not going to believe this."

Charles stopped with a deep breath and a slump of his shoulders as he made out the unfortunate headline. He heard Azazel chuckling from the stairs, where he couldn't be seen.

Slowly he stirred again, covering the last few steps toward them.

"You're right, Sean," he said, joining them. "I probably won't."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to lacidiana for betaing on demand due to my super procrastination.


End file.
